Our next featured artist for the Chats with the Cats interview series is singer Richard Cortez
Richard was born in Miami and grew up in a small suburb outside of Ft. Lauderdale called Pembroke Pines. He recalls his earliest artistic influences being outside the realms of music but still having a huge impact on his style of performance.
"My influences were the radical queer pioneers of my town. Transgender folx living unapologetically, gay men who survived the AIDS epidemic in NYC and SF who found themselves in South Florida looking for reprieve and the other young queer people I met in school who were also out - we'd nod at each other in the hallway like soldiers at war just trying to survive the day. Those people and the memory of them courses through my veins every time I take the stage - I am forever reminded of the importance of representation and advocacy within performance art and music. Specifically, Jazz."
"My childhood wasn't a very pleasant place. I grew up in a very violent and abusive home with a mother who struggled with mental illness and a father who was an absent sex addict that thought he could fix the young queer kid he was raising by toughening him up.
But a few positive moments I have are driving around with my Grandmother, Evelyn Simon, on my way to Hebrew School. She was a wonderfully eccentric woman and introduced me to The Great American Songbook."
Also Richard discovered a box of his mother's old vinyls, "I'd go in my room and play them on my little record player. I would lock the door and perform to the imaginary audience in my room. My trust and capacity to connect with an audience developed before there was anyone watching. Music has always been a safe space for me. It was an escape I still turn to in my adulthood when I need to lose myself in something after the city has taken its toll on me for the day. Once I'm singing, I'm that little kid again in that car singing The Trolley Song and nothing can get to me. The music lifts me up."
Like many in this city, the decision to pursue an artistic performance based lifestyle comes with plenty of risk.
"I would say that I knew no matter what, for as long as I can remember, that I wanted to be on stage performing. I'm hoping to make the jump into playing Jazz full time and I think perhaps I would have by now had it not been for the pandemic, but with everything feeling so unsure all the time and the state of the world - I'm not too sure which path to take. For now, I'm just burning the candle at both ends working all day and gigging most nights hoping some great neon sign in the sky is finally going to say - "Richard, Stop. It's time. You won't end up in the gutter. You can focus solely on the music." ... and to be honest, I hope that time is soon.
So what brought Richard from Florida to NYC?
So, I turned 31 and I was still single and living in Florida. I had just gone on a very messy/unsuccessful tour with a folk/americana band I was in and things were rapidly de-compensating between me and my bandmate. So, I thought - where am I gonna find a gorgeous tattooed gay man who also likes Elliott Smith and Billie Holiday to love me and raise plants with me? I know! - NYC. So I moved here - not even thinking about music, let alone Jazz. I wasn't even a Jazz singer at the time. So, here I am - 6 years later, no man, lots of plants, a few more tattoos and a budding "career" in Jazz. The universe always takes you to where you're supposed to be."
Being a singer-songwriter started to take its toll on Richard. "I grew exhausted from being so emotionally vulnerable on stage and in my art. I needed a film over the feelings, I no longer wanted the words to be mine."
"I met a jazz guitarist at a party and we met up and played a few tunes I knew from my grandmother and the rest is history, I guess. I didn't think this would ever be my life or my identity as an artist. Jazz always seemed so elitist and like a club you had to be rich and go to school for a million years to be a part of or good at.
I'm very grateful for what I've been given this go 'round. The imposter syndrome runs deep in me. When you spend your entire life being called a faggot and don't have a family that supports you - that voice sneaks in and says "sure, you have 5 weekly gigs, but just remember - you're no one and no one is ever going to take you seriously." You learn to push through and try your best not to listen - but trauma impacts us in every facet of our lives. ..and NYC isn't for the weak of mind or spirit."
"I was a stripper when I first moved to NYC. I danced at Eastern Bloc (which is now Club Clumming) and worked for some party promoters and event curators like Frankie Sharp and Daniel Nardicio and it was through those contacts that I was able to get the gigs I now have.
Every venue I now sing at, I used to dance on top of the bars of. I've long since hung up my g-strings, but those were some wild times. Wouldn't trade them in for the world."
As a proud gay man and staunch equality advocate, how does Richard feel about LGBT representation in Jazz?
"I feel like Jazz has become so academic, white-washed and much like figure skating or something niche and expensive like it - if you don't have the money for the education or the privilege of coming from a well-off or established family, you can forget about being set up for success. You have to fight tooth and nail just to be heard. And if you're different - you can add that to the weight all that the work carries.That sort of gate keeping comes with certain rules. I choose not to play by them. I am 100% authentically myself in my identity as an artist because growing up I so much so wanted to hear songs being sung by a man about men or about things that directly related to my culture or my community's sense of humor. I may not be the best singer and I may not go very far - but my purpose is to carve out space for the next gay Jazz singer who comes along that might not have the opportunities they'll need to be seen if I don't create those for them by being out here in people's faces like - I'm gay, not heteronormative and I have a place at this table... and what?I like to think if Cole Porter heard me sing his songs, he'd "get a kick out of it." Gay as he was. I mean - c'mon - "but if baby I'm the bottom, you're the top"...
"There was many Queer artists that I work with or know and look up to now here in NYC. I won't disclose their names because that's not my place, but know that they're out here. Their queer identity might not be the focal point of their work - but just recently at Smalls a young woman came up to me and thanked me for doing this work. She said as a queer woman, she knew it would take a queer man to make a name for himself before she would ever be taken seriously as an LGBT female performer in Jazz. That stayed with me. We still have so much work to do. For an art form that's so free - the keys and the decisions are still being held and made by only one kind of person."
So what has Richard been listening to this month?
"I am never not listening to Dinah Washington, period. She's my favorite.
I also spend a lot of time listening to my peers. I love celebrating our community - it's so rich with talent.
And let's be honest, It's no secret I love Lucy Yeghiazaryan - she's my muse. During the pandemic I downloaded every concert I could find of hers and would listen to them over and over trying to figure out how I could sound that good. You can't deny that she is one of the magical and flawless voices of our time."
What is KU!'s importance to the city?
"KEYEDUP! has been a game changer. I first heard about them when I was at my favorite place to get black-out drunk and eat buffalo wings - Hermana NYC (hosting Aida Brandes every Tuesday night). But once I met the team and they were so welcoming, I knew it was going to be the right fit - and I was right. It has been swell. Let's get to the bone and marrow of it, live music was already suffering before the pandemic. And as a gigging musician, you have to decide between working for really shitty pay or not working at all. Venue owners nickel and dime you, are unsupportive and reap all the benefits of your labor and talents - and think a few drink tickets and $50 is gonna help you survive. Well, it ain't. So, for KU! to be helping subsidize the funds to properly pay musicians... no words will ever be able to express my deeply profound gratitude. They are keeping the music alive."
Despite the pandemic, I never stopped creating or making music. In March of 2020, I curated an online interview series through the Club Cumming instagram called Conversations on Jazz. I was then able to get the keys to the club and give musicians out of work streaming bookings in a series I called Alone Together. As soon as we were able to perform outdoors, I was on it - in the snow and sleet with Chris McCarthy performing in freezing weather with no heaters. Then in Feb of 2021 we were able to move inside. That was a game changer. For nearly a year, I had one of the only working septets in NYC and because so many INCREDIBLE musicians who probably would NEVER have worked with me before were out of work and bored, they came and played Club Cumming. That put me and my name on the map in a way it was never seen before."
"I hope we can get back to a place where congregating to hear live music doesn't feel uncomfortable for anyone. We've all been through so much fear and conditioning regarding the pandemic. I know, no matter what, nothing is going to stop me from singing Jazz. And I hope the echoes of the work I've put in are heard in the music of LGBTQIAA jazz musicians long after I'm gone. That is my hope."
You can catch Richard on Tuesday nights at Club Cumming, Thursday nights at Metropolitan Lounge BK and Sundays at Rebar Chelsea. Richard is also working on a visual live album, a studio record with my septet. "Keep your eyes and ears out."
Photo credit - George Mott